


a final conversation

by Serie11



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers, look aloy needs to cry and I'm here to facilitate that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: After the final battle, Aloy goes home one last time.





	a final conversation

**Author's Note:**

> ANYWAY I can't believe that after the game they don't let you go and talk to Rost again, so I wrote it myself. Enjoy!

 

Aloy stood next to the first campfire out of the homestead, and looked up the cliff.

She could still remember when this path didn’t exist. She found the first handhold, and began climbing. Rost had finished it just before her fifteenth birthday, and she’d given him a heart attack the first time he saw her swinging herself up the handholds recklessly. A fall from that height would have killed her.

She’d never fallen though, and she’d eventually cajoled him into finding the rope needed to create a zip line down from the top of the cliff so she didn’t need to spend the time making her way down the treacherous cliff path.

Pulling herself up the final time, she lay on the ground for a minute, arms burning. The sun was high against a blue summer sky, and she looked out over the valley before pushing herself up.

As she crossed the bridge, her trek at an end, her heart thumped loudly in her ears. Aloy took the final steps towards Rost’s grave, standing in silence before it for a few minutes while she gathered her thoughts.

“I better make sure no one’s listening in,” she eventually said, her voice echoing in the silence of the clearing. She was glad she couldn’t see the house very clearly – it would only make painful memories harder to bear.

Sylens hadn’t contacted her since the last time he said goodbye, but Aloy still placed her Focus down carefully, then turned to sit next to the grave.

“Hi Rost,” she said, taking a deep breath and managing to keep her voice from cracking. “It’s been a while since I last came, huh. I know last time I was here I said I might not come back – I might die during the battle. Well, I’m here,” she said, a bit redundantly. She sighed.

“I made it through the final battle. HADES is gone for good. Meridian village was destroyed during the fight though, and about half the people who lived there died. Avad’s got every noble offering their spare space for the survivors, and surprisingly, there hasn’t been any complaints.”

She blows out a breath. It doesn’t fog up the air, and the snow around the grave is melting – high summer is here.

“I’ve been helping out there. The royal maizelands got torched as well, so food’s in short supply. The hunters have exhausted what game once roamed near Meridian, so I’ve been going further afield, into the jungle, to find meat. The Carja guardsmen go out in packs of ten and scare off most of the game, but usually manage to return to Meridian in one piece, thankfully. Erend’s got them all teaching the villagers how to hunt, so soon I think they’re gonna start taking them out as well, as extra eyes and ears and bows. The villagers usually can gather well enough, so that’s mostly what they’re doing now. The jungle is so rich with resources, that they’ll get through next winter and plant the new crops next spring. Once I made sure I knew they could fend for themselves, I took a leave of absence. Staying in one place for so long was beginning to grate on me.”

Aloy pulled a few blue beads out of her pouch, that she’d traded for at one of the Carja outposts on the way here.

“I figured you’d like some here. You always liked blue. Always made sure I could wear some of it.”

Aloy stared at the beads.

“I found Elisabet’s body.”

Saying the words made them real. This was the real reason she’d come here – no one else would understand what finding her had done to Aloy.

“All the flowers I’ve been collecting… They were for her. I don’t know why GAIA put them where they were. Maybe they were in places Elisabet liked to be. Her final log… She said…”

Aloy puts her face in her hands, not fighting her tears. Rost had always told her that bottling things up would only invite them to explode later on.

“She said she wanted her daughter… to be curious, and unstoppable… and compassionate enough to heal the world… I think I’ve got that in spades, huh? You always said I was too curious for my own good. And I did save the world, just a little. Guess you were right when you told me I was special.”

Aloy hesitantly pulls out the globe. “I know you don’t like things from the old world. But she was holding this. I think it meant something to her. Something important.” Aloy held it up, letting the light fall on it.

“When I was in a ruin, it showed a map of the world. It was a globe, and it looked like this. What do you think it meant to her? Was it a burden? A reminder that the weight of the future rested on her? Or a tribute to all the people that died in the old world? A promise to do better?”

Aloy lowered it again, and clasped the faded globe in both hands loosely. “I guess I’ll never know for sure. But I’d like to think it was precious to her. Something of hers for me to keep.”

Aloy looked at the globe for a long time. “I’m not really sure what I’m going to do now. They don’t really need me in Meridian. But there are things that only I can do, places only I can get into. I don’t know if I want to disturb them anymore, though. Just because I can, doesn’t mean that I should.”

She turned to look over the cliff, into the mists of the Nora valley.

“For so long, I had a purpose. First, the win the Proving, and find out who my mother was. Then, find Olin, and find out who Elisabet was. Find a way to stop HADES. But that’s all done now.” She sighed.

“I’m thinking of the GAIA facility. There’s got to be a backup copy of her somewhere, and I want to find it. Just because the main facility is gone, doesn’t mean that she’s gone forever.” She reached over to adjust one of the candles on the stone.

“Thanks for listening to me, Rost. You’ve always been there for me, even when you go places I can’t follow yet. I’ll try to come back soon, but I might not be near the Sacred Lands for a while. You know how it is. People to save, machines to kill.”

She tried to crack a smile. “Anyway, see you round, I guess.”

Aloy took a step back and retrieved her Focus. Fitting it back on her ear felt right. Sighing, she adjusted her bow to sit on her back more comfortably, and turned to face the entrance of the homestead.

She had a file to find.


End file.
